Shorn
by Aya Renee
Summary: Fili did not know what overwhelmed him more, his hope that perhaps his uncle might work some of the festering poison out of his system, or his pity for the lass who was to pay the price for it. He couldn't help but feel a bit of kinship with her. She was as broken as they were, in the end. A broken people in a broken home, waiting on their broken king.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Nothing from _The Hobbit_ is mine.

I should also add an important warning: Here there be SPOILERS!

This story presumes some knowledge of events in the book. We begin _in medias res_, quite a ways in actually (oh, but how I do love flashbacks!)

Thanks for reading, in advance. Please leave a review if you gain some small pleasure, or wish to offer helpful critique (which is always welcome).

Did I mention SPOILERS?

* * *

**Prologue**

**A Siege on the Horizon  
**

**Five days following the desolation of Smaug**

* * *

"You go. It'll get done faster with just one."

Fili rolled his eyes in annoyance. "And to think we once called you the Plodder. Since when did you acquire such a taste for haste?"

Kili offered an unapologetic shrug. "Since he nearly took my head off for dropping those fine gauntlets from the trove. It's not right, all that sitting and brooding."

Fili heard the aching sadness in his brother's voice, and had not the heart to tease him for cowardice. Instead, he stared into the darkness across the ominous bridge, the threshold at his feet. He could barely make out the imposing figure of his uncle lounging on the throne at the far end, illuminated by the small circle of light from a flickering pine-torch. When Thorin was not relentlessly hunting for the Arkenstone, it was there he sat, a sickly hunger in his eyes that darkened to the riot of anger with the slightest prompting.

Kili had always borne the brunt of that temper. His brother had a leaning towards the brashness of youth, and Thorin had no talent for restraint in his reprimands. But of late there was a menace to his censure, when before there had always been the knowledge of affection to temper the blow.

"Stay then. But you gain the first leg of my next watch. Give me the knife."

His brother quickly disappeared into the shadows of the ruins behind him, the knife slapped into his waiting palm before he'd even finished his gruff command. Fili took a moment to study it, a weapon finer by far than his own hardy hunting blade. He'd admired it before, this small thing of deceptive elegance, when Thorin once held it.

How_ she_ had acquired it, he could only guess. More certain was his uncle's reaction upon being reunited with it, but there was no avoiding the job at hand. Fili began to pick his way carefully across the ruins of the crumbling bridge.

Through piles of rubble and beaten stone.

___From broken bridge to broken throne._

He hummed softly under his breath. He could admit it was not the most effective of distractions, with such a dark abyss on either side of his narrow terrain, but he could never seem to help himself. Difficult tasks were always done easier with the rhythms of pulse and song as escort.

_A passage so dire, to face his ire…_

He came to a sudden halt at a treacherous gap in the bridge. He was accustomed to rely on Kili to finish his rhymes. His mind quickly filtered through a series of phrases, determined to avoid using _alone_. If only he could make use of the finely crafted harps hidden in the deep, but Thorin had forbidden they touch anything beyond the armor and weapons they'd been allotted, until things were settled with their enemies.

It was past all bearing, the silence that had overtaken their company, these broken people in a broken home, waiting on their broken king. With no music to hearken the strike of the hammers, how could they re-forge their future? He gritted his teeth against the rising tide of his own frustrations, refusing to give into whatever darkness had taken hold of his uncle.

A gruff voice called sharply from the shadows, full of impatience, pulling him from his thoughts.

"Fili. You have returned. What is your report?"

He quickly jumped the gap, speaking even as he made his way to the throne. "Only three ponies remained unscathed from the dragon's fire. Not much in the way of supplies. It won't stand a long siege."

Thorin's thunderous brows furrowed, but he remained seated. "It will stand whatever we must bear. We will not be giving up our gold to thieving sons of men and a host of fickle elves, who think to stake a claim upon it."

Fili chose to nod instead of voicing a reply. Any answer he could give would only taunt the rumbling thunder to a full-blown tempest.

"And Kili? Did I not command him to join you in scouting?"

"He is attending to the supplies. And the…" Fili hesitated, unsure of what to call her. He settled on an enigmatic response. "Supply ponies were not all we found."

He held the knife between them, hilt up, the smooth blade pressed between his thumb and forefinger. Thorin stood and pulled it from his grasp so swiftly, he could hear the worn fabric of his gloves cut and split, adding to his pile of what needed mending.

_Sew and stitch  
_

_with a feverish pitch  
_

"She is here?"

Fili nearly flinched, unprepared for such a sharp bark of sound in the weighty silence that surrounded them. "Yes. How she made it here, I have no way of knowing. But here she sits, nonetheless. In the main chamber."

What was left of the main chamber.

Thorin's eyes glittered in the dark, reflecting the small light like the sharp edge of the betraying dagger. "She makes her way through Mirkwood, and to our very mountain, and yet you do not wonder why you were able to gain her capture with such ease?"

Fili quirked a brow. "Our eyes have always been offered trust among this company. But to the point, she came willing enough."

Thorin snorted. "Your eyes are not what I question. That little flower has more a mind for plots than you give her credit. And she covets more than what this stolen knife might have bought her. She used you. She could not get in otherwise."

Goblets and knives! Were there not more pressing concerns for the guardians of the deep?

"You think we should have left her there, bound so as not to follow us further, awaiting the refuge of rescue or likely death? She helped us once."

And her aid might have counted for something, _once_. But his uncle's growing possessiveness had spread far beyond the borders of all forgiveness or forgetting.

"She might have fared better there than here. Let us hope she still remains _where_ you left her last, or her life will not be the only one forfeit." With that dire threat hanging in the air, Thorin pushed past him on the narrow segment of rock beneath their feet.

Fili was unprepared for his uncle's swift movement, and he found himself jostled off balance, reeling over the edge. His breath left him in a rush, his back cushioned by nothing but the cold air of the abyss, his heels skittering wildly on shards of stone that afforded him no purchase.

He felt a hysterical laugh bubble up from some maddened area of his frantic mind. He was _not_ the clumsy of the brothers. Yet a moment of lost footing was to be his own downfall. How often had he teasingly threatened just such an end for Kili?

Before he could blink, a hand emerged from the shadows, pulling him upright to safety. He lifted his eyes, and for a brief moment he saw the flicker of familiar concern and affection in his uncle's gaze, before the veil of anger slipped down again to mask it.

Thorin had nurtured such anger for decades, Fili knew this well. But the heavy rhythm of the forge had tempered some of his rage, and the dangers of their recent journey had allowed a small release of pent-up hate. But of late, there had been no outlet.

Until now.

Fili didn't know what overwhelmed him more, his hope that perhaps his uncle might work some of the poison out of his system, or his pity for the lass who was to pay the price for it.

He couldn't help feeling a bit of kinship with her.

She was as broken as they were.

He suddenly felt very tired. Worn thin. Cut stone brushed the back of his knees, and he turned around to face the throne.

It beckoned, from the dark, like the whisper of a lover in the cold lonely winter.

Coaxing.

His mouth quirked in a half-smile of contemplation, as he was briefly distracted from his recent concerns.

_The throne is lonely  
_

_and if I only  
_

_wish to sit  
_

_and rest for a bit?_

Did he dare?

He stole a glance over his shoulder, but Thorin was gone.

He turned, stretching his back with a soft groan of pleasure, and began to sink down into the seat.

"Fili!" The roar of his name echoed through the ruins, a summons from the shadows.

He stiffened, sighed, and gave the throne a mocking little bow. "Apologies. I hate to disappoint, but my legs have been called to other duties, and my bum must follow."

There was to be no rest just yet.

And certainly no throne, broken or otherwise.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 1**

**Mirkwood on the Horizon**

**Approximately two months preceding the desolation of Smaug**

* * *

The hooded woman pretended to study the coarsely etched squares in her hands while she planned her escape. She'd done her best to temper her winnings throughout the night, but it was becoming difficult to pass off her recent string of success as simple luck. Men were not wont to take losing lightly, even in the simplest of games, and most especially when they smelled a cheat.

She really couldn't hold it against them, considering she was one.

She eyed the few trinkets on the table with barely concealed hunger. It was enough to feed her for the next few weeks.

Perhaps enough to get her away from here.

Enough to start anew.

_Again._

Roderick the Red interrupted her reverie with a huff of frustration. Bloody Roddy, as he was wont to be called, and not for the rust-tipped hair that covered his over-sized head.

"We don't got all night ta wait, Shorn."

She rolled her eyes at his impatience, more annoyed at his beady-eyed leer than the unwanted nickname. Her inky black locks had once been her crowning glory, cascading to her waist in thick, shiny waves. But they attracted too much attention for someone wanting to travel in obscurity, and so they had had to go.

She pulled her threadbare hood farther over her head, refusing to be shamed by men who knew even less of honest work than herself.

She heard the door open to her left. She instinctively huddled deeper into the refuge of the shadows at the lone table, set up in the corner of the teetering lodging that served as the local inn and trading post of the aptly named village of Dimroot. Only hardened travelers wandered this close to the foothills, lone cutters of stone and unsavory criminals.

Curious, and decidedly wary, she took a careful peek around the edge of her hood. She was startled to see a trio of dwarves enter, each one of them equipped with what looked to be enough weapons to satisfy a small army.

They most certainly knew how to use them.

In fact, they looked like they had just finished using them.

The air turned decidedly tense. She heard the unmistakable sound of Roddy unsheathing his dagger. She snorted to herself, taking a small, pleasured moment to imagine him wielding such a rusty piece of worthless metal against so much well-made steel.

If she were a more charitable person, she might have uttered a word of caution, but one had to find the small joys of living, when all other options were gone.

And then a fourth entered. Not a dwarf, but a towering man in grey, whose sharp eyes sought out all corners and then rested, unerringly, on the reckless man to her right.

His crisp voice rang out in the ensuing silence of the room like the crack of a whip. "We seek food and drink, not trouble, and information regarding a wanderer of the Mirkwood vale. The one known, in these parts at least, as the Larkspur."

Swift movement across the table shifted her attention back to her gaming companions. She was not surprised to find three dirty fingers pointed in her direction, followed by a flurry of movement as hands scrambled up measly winnings and recent bets.

Even Roddy had put his knife away.

They may have been fools and simpletons and petty crooks, but she really could not fault them their base instincts for survival.

It seemed she was set to win only betrayal on this night.

_Again._

* * *

The teeth of the white warg had dug deep.

Thorin took shallow breaths as he sat in the uncomfortable, creaking chair. Leave it to a race of short-lived long-shanks to craft such hideous pieces of tortured wood. He should have remained standing, but he still felt the strain of recent injury, despite the aid of the eagles, and he refused to show any weakness in an establishment of men.

And certainly not in front of one of their women. He could not completely stifle his surprise that this was the one Gandalf had sought. Yet after his recent experiences with the brave little hobbit, he felt he at least owed Gandalf the silent tongue that had been requested of him.

But it was difficult to tap down the rush of prideful anger when the lass spared their offer of contract only a passing, dismissive glance. He assumed she would seek more coin, but instead, an indelicate snort of laughter emerged from the shadows of her hood.

"I am no scout or fitting guide. I'd have a hard time finding my own nose if it fell from my face to the floor. Someone has sorely misinformed you."

Thorin breathed a sigh of relief at her swift refusal, but Gandalf shook his head, and pressed her further. "My source is well-trusted. It is said you were once of the Woodmen tribes, a daughter of Mirkwood."

For a moment, no sound emerged from the shadows of her hood. Then, "Things are said of many, and not all of them true. Rumor swells quickly around those that keep to their own counsel. Look to the Bear. There you stand a better chance of gaining the aid you require than anything men of this forsaken place can offer."

Gandalf's breath left in a rush. "If you know Beorn, then you have more knowledge of the forest than most."

She stiffened in her seat. "I did not say I knew him. This place is as far away as I get from the river. I travel the vale, and the vale only. I keep my head down and my ears open. I will share what I know. For a price."

Thorin was not surprised at her greed.

He was not surprised that even the simplest of needs on this journey would cost him greatly.

He was not surprised that her words were full of dangers and warnings and he was relieved that he had left the hobbit back at the camp with the others.

He was, however, surprised to find that her voice gave him the absurd desire to hear her sing.

It was pitched low, rhythmic, full of smoky resonance and no daughter of man should have a voice like that.

Especially not one so puny.

He judged her to stand no more than a few fingers higher than he. She wore an oversized, ill-fitting brown cloak, but the delicate hands sticking out from too-long sleeves betrayed her. She used her small eating dagger to spear a sausage from the meager trencher of food they had ordered.

He could break the fine bones of her wrist with a simple twist of his fingers.

He watched her deftly pocket the sausage and spear another in the blink of an eye. If he hadn't been inspecting her so closely, he might have missed it.

The race of men were notoriously untrustworthy. This also did not surprise him, and he could keep his promised silence no longer. "What manner of creature are you, that your mouth resides up your sleeve?"

The almost imperceptible shifting in the fabric told him she had turned to stare at him. She set down the eating dagger with slow purpose.

Empty again, he noted.

Despite Gandalf's furrowed brows, he could not stop himself from challenging her. "And why do you hide your face from those with whom you share a meal?"

The weight of her hidden gaze pressed upon him. He thought his taunts would go ignored, but after a long moment she lifted her small hands and pulled the expansive hood back. The soft sigh of the shifting fabric collided sharply with the quickly indrawn breaths of his nephews sitting at his side.

He couldn't blame them. Her face, like her voice, was also cause for surprise.

She possessed the kind of fine-featured, delicate beauty that would have been subject of song and legend among her kind, but for the twisting scars that marred the otherwise smooth alabaster of her fair skin. The largest bisected her face in a jagged line, starting at her left temple to curve around her high cheekbone. It ended at her full lips, tugging slightly at the top corner of her mouth, leaving the impression she was smirking at a joke she shared only with herself.

Another scar slashed down from her bottom lip across her chin, in a thin white line. Its placement gave the illusion of being a continuation of the scar on her cheek, but he had seen enough injuries in his lifetime to recognize the effects of two distinct weapons. The lower scar was cleaner, precise in a way, unlike the edges of the upper scar, which grew thick and puckered at the center.

She made no attempt to hide such marks with hair, what little she had, no more than their hobbit companion. The silky midnight strands seemed as inclined to rebellion as the sharp jut of her stubborn chin, curling in jaunty disarray around her heart-shaped face.

She would have looked almost fey, but for the scars, and the story of pain and loss he could read in her wide, grey eyes as easily as words on parchment. Framed by a thick fringe of sable lashes, they seemed startlingly large, tilting up at the corners and contributing to the overall impression of good humor and almost-laughter. But twin smudges of purple marred the tender skin below, telling a tale of exhaustion, and he could find no trace of levity in their silvery depths.

There was a hunger there.

A sharpness, finely honed by want and lack, and a deep wariness.

He felt unsettled, looking upon a creature so seemingly weak and yet so harshly marked. He almost regretted taunting her to take down her hood. Without the ally of the shadows, her eyes seemed to see far too much.

And expose far too much.

He would never admit it, but he saw himself reflected in that haughty gaze of smoke and steel, and it rankled him sorely, that he might feel kinship with a daughter of man.

* * *

Larkspur felt the scrape of bark against her cheek as she lay on the wide, low-lying branch. She closed her eyes for a moment, finding a strange peace so close to a tree again. There were many possible threats waiting to strike from the shadows of the night, but they were not something that concerned her.

She was, after all, one of them.

Various voices hummed from the camp a short distance from her secret position, and two of them emerged as distinct, warning her that figures approached the base of her tree. She opened her eyes to the sight of the dark-haired one. Their true leader, she'd guessed. Despite the fact that the man in grey had done most of the talking earlier that evening, there was no mistaking the seething pride from this one, with his cutting eyes that missed nothing.

He now spoke with a white-bearded companion of distant concerns.

The man in grey was leaving their company.

They must make haste, for a door and a moon and a lonely mountain.

And treasures that were rumored to lie beneath.

She had no need of treasures from the deep. Only a small trinket, to sustain her way south. But she knew she would have to be careful if she were to take anything of value from the well-guarded camp. From what she'd been able to discern, they were a close lot, finding easy comfort in camaraderie. She had watched, in rapt fascination, as they ate together and worked together, teased and laughed.

And they sang, late into the night. Songs of loss, songs of battle, songs of triumph, all of them with feeling. An aching, pitted lump had knotted in her throat at their songs and, on occasion, her eyes had burned with the sting of some unseen force.

The sting came again, even now, even at the memory of their song. She silently rubbed her eyes in annoyance, cursing twigs and pieces of shattered bark.

And then she stilled her useless movements with sudden realization.

She had not cried since that day, so long ago, when never-ending tears had poured in a torrent of salted pain and bitter loss. She'd been numb for so long, she had forgotten the sensation.

She let her forehead fall to the bark and breathed in the smell of earth and tree in a vain attempt to calm her suddenly shattered nerves. She was consumed by the desire to get away from their camp, _now_, as fast as her feet could carry her.

She would find another mark.

Another way.

She shifted in the tree, watched in tense silence as the white-bearded one ambled towards the inviting light of the fires.

She waited for the sharp-eyed one to follow. Her breath came in shallow gasps as she fought against the invisible vise that was clenching at her breast.

She had sworn to herself that she would let no more tears fall, not while she yet lived and breathed.

In retrospect, she realized she should have given more focus to not letting her body fall.

* * *

Thorin heard the unnatural rustle in the tree above him. His knife was already in hand when he felt his enemy attack. Despite being pushed off balance he quickly gained the advantage, rolling his assailant to the ground.

He put the sharp edge of the knife against the feeble skin of his enemy's throat.

_Her_ throat.

His body registered the telling softness under him before his mind realized she was offering no further fight. She made a small sound of distress, but he could find no fear in her shimmering grey eyes.

He shook himself, quickly standing and dragging her to her feet. His instincts had not failed him concerning the woman. He knew she shouldn't have been trusted.

"I thought only the Woodmen took their rest in the trees," he taunted.

"I take my rest wherever I can find it." She made no attempt to pull against his unyielding grip on her arm. She didn't even acknowledge it.

In fact, she seemed completely disinterested in recognizing the danger she was in. He watched her pluck a twig from her hair with forceful abandon, and he couldn't help but wince when she took a knot of hair with it.

"The flower of the larkspur is a noxious poison, is it not?"

He suspected the name was not her birth one. She did not respond, but her mouth curved in a smile that did not reach her eyes.

He clenched his jaw in frustration. "And do you plot poison for dwarves?"

She shook her head, and her smile fell. "Plots are not my strength."

She was so small. Yet under the pressure of his hand, beneath the coarseness of the fabric, he could feel taut cords of muscle.

She hid much, this little wilted flower.

He tightened his grip on her arm, feeling his formidable temper rise and swell. "And what is your strength, _spying_?"

"It would seem not." The soft smile returned, and this time he thought he saw the spark of humor reach her eyes, but it flared and died too quickly to be certain.

What little patience remained left him just as swiftly.

Anger roiled to the surface in its place, like the flame taunted by bellows. With the speed and grace of a warrior well-trained he danced her back against the trunk of the tree that had betrayed her presence. He pressed the cold blade against the skin of her neck for a second time.

"Do not attempt to play with me. I know what you are, _thief_. But there is more to be sold here than mere trinkets. Who else plots against us, if you have not the wits to do so yourself?"

She hesitated. He pressed down firmly with the blade. Seeds of crimson swelled, bloomed, and fluttered in a trail down the column of her neck.

Eyes of steel, and yet she was so fragile, like the flower whose name she bore. He pushed down an unbidden pang of remorse. Even delicate petals, once crushed, held the power of death for some creatures, and she was nothing to him, unlike the thirteen who depended on his protection.

"Tell me," he gritted out.

She swallowed, her answer a soft, hoarse rasp of sound. "No one. There is no one. I am alone."

When he looked into her eyes he did not see the deceit he was expecting, but what he did see made him pull back the blade in horror.

It was a look he had seen often enough before, in men who were hunted not from without, but from within. There was invitation there, some part of her that might well welcome a swift end, hidden deep in those eyes that brought to mind so clearly the mist on his lonely mountain home.

He was not given to an interest in strangers, but he found himself achingly curious, unable to stop the words that fell from his lips. "You wear the kiss of battle. How did you come by this?"

Her eyes narrowed to glittering slits, suddenly filled with hate and malice. "It is no business of yours. And should I come by another wound on this night, there would be none to know that story either. And none that would care."

It was such a part of him, to re-forge what had been broken. Yet he knew, with a surety born of his own forsaken past, that there would be no fix for the damage that haunted this one. He sighed with resignation and re-sheathed his dagger. Too much blood and death lay scattered on the path he had trod. More yet lay on the path to come, as destiny bore him ahead. Soon enough, she would fade beyond his memory. They would be facing the dangers of Mirkwood with no guide, and no wizard, and many preparations still needed attending in the morning.

"Do not let me find you among this company again," he hissed in warning, before turning on his heel to head back to camp, unaware of the re-lightened load of his dagger's sheath, an oversight that he would not notice until he went to break his nightly fast.


End file.
